Typically, I would launch a biopic review with an anecdote or hip-pocket trivia regarding the film’s subject matter. However, I have never seen a Laurel & Hardy movie. I knew enough to recognize Stan Laurel as the short, skinny guy playing to Oliver Hardy’s more physically imposing presence. I have a hunch I am not alone. I wager more folks believe they have seen at least one of the duo’s films, but actually have not. Laurel & Hardy are frequent crossword answers, their names are in the lexicon because they mark a particular Hollywood era, and it's easy to roll their names off alongside Abbott & Costello. Yet, a significant slice of 2019’s movie-goers are unfamiliar with the bits and sketches which entertained audiences back in the 1930s. The film even more than suggests that by the early ‘50s, their humor was dated, they were out of touch with the mainstream, and they were your parents’ preferred comedians - probably akin to how my kid will feel about Jerry Seinfeld and Saturday Night Live’s late ‘90s cast. He’ll know their names, but he won’t identify with their material.

There are two ways to pick and choose which reviews to read about Stan & Ollie - a reviewer who will recognize and place the allusion vs. a neophyte. This is one firmly rooted in going in blind. I don’t know their mannerisms, their most famous gags, and who is known for what. I learned along the way and discerned what were most likely their highlights, but it is all filtered through director Jon S. Baird’s lens and writer Jeff Pope’s decision on what to include and what he felt was unimportant. Stan & Ollie’s first unique offering is it does not chart a period in the life of Laurel & Hardy even their fans are familiar with. After an initial greeting at the zenith of their fame in 1937, the story vaults 16 years into the future when the mostly forgotten pair travel up and down England on a comedy tour of the island’s lesser venues. The girl at the desk of a cheap hotel says, “All the big celebrities play the Royal Theatre.” Stan (Steve Coogan, The Dinner) replies with no insult taken, “We’re at the Queen’s Hall.”

Laurel & Hardy believe they may resurrect their dormant film career if their comedy tour proves successful. During the opening, showing-off the film's most impressive shot, an impressively long take from dressing rooms through a studio back lot and onto a soundstage, we learn Ollie (John C. Reilly, Guardians of the Galaxy) has financial problems due to divorces and gambling and Stan angles for a raise. The acrimony between the two is gradually revealed later as Ollie stayed with Hal Roach Studios and made a picture with someone else after Stan attempted to flee to another studio. They didn’t talk about it, but most of life’s greatest animosities are usually left unsaid. In the film’s 1953 present day, the elder comedians play to mostly empty houses, but it gives the new 2019 audience a chance to enjoy what must be their most famous bits including a hospital scene and an enjoyable farce on a train platform.

Old habits naturally bubble up during the tour as Ollie rediscovers gambling and Stan’s jealousies about their due emerge as he stares up at a building-sized advertisement for the new Abbott & Costello picture. He knows that could/should be them up there for all to see. Personal foibles are tucked back in, yet tongues are loosened, when their respective wives show up during the tour’s latter stages. Stan’s wife, Ida (Nina Arianda, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them), exudes entitlement, a diva attitude, and never misses an opportunity, even if it is not there, to mention through her thick Russian accent she was once in a Preston Sturgess picture. Ollie’s wife, Lucille (Shirley Henderson, Okja), is as protective of her husband as Ida is sharp-tongued. Lucille believes Stan pushes Ollie too hard and steamrolls over him. Ida believe Ollie is lazy and holds Stan back. If there ever was a truth to these opinions, it was probably somewhere in the middle.

Jon Baird never lets Stan & Ollie off the chain enough to become fully melodramatic, but the inevitable confrontations between the two men who know each other so well, also know exactly how to verbally skewer the other to truly make it hurt. I have no idea if Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly are perfectly cast or miscast; one needs to know the source material to have an informed opinion. I know both are believable and deliver performances which demonstrate they care and admire the early Hollywood titans. It’s bold to create a biopic not about a famous person’s rise, their peak, or even their comedy in this case. Stan & Ollie follows their gradual descent, more gravitational than graceful. A career’s worth of baggage provides enough material to chew on, but this is more nostalgic remembrance about another time rather than a celebration. If they are still alive, I say your great-grandparents would love it. ​